Bloom Where You’re Planted: A Tale of Two Trees

April 12, 2017

Where are you planted? Are you planted in your own life, your own plans, or your own activities? Or are you planted in Christ’s life, His eternal plan, and His activities? To be planted is to be set firmly or established in or on something. What are you set firmly in, your ways or God’s ways? What are you established on, the foundation of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or the foundation of the tree of life?

Planted in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil

To be planted in my own life (aka, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) is to seek God’s plan for my life. It is to accept Christ into my life. It is to fit the Heir of all things into my box. It is to spend my life longing for and desiring to experience Christ and His fullness, to be a part of a body of believers holding fast to Christ as the Head and giving Him His proper authority and expression, but staying in my job, in my city, in my house, in my life and never seeking Him out. Or it is to accept a new job in another place after having been without one for months or years and finding out that a group is being started in my current place and asking why God would be so mean as to give me a new job and move me away from His Church, with every intention to still take that job. To be planted in my life, in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, is to be swayed and influenced by the world’s systems, what’s right by the world’s standards. It is to live by conventional wisdom.

Planted in the Tree of Life

To be planted in God’s life (aka, the tree of life) is to seek God’s plan. It is to accept the call into Christ’s life. It is to fit into the Heir of all things’ box. It is to spend time seeking God out wherever He may be to experience Christ and His fullness, to be a part of a body of believers holding fast to Christ as the Head and giving Him His proper authority and expression, regardless of my job, city, house, or life. It is to accept a new job in another place after having been without one for months or years and finding out that a group is being started in my current place and asking God if He wants me to stay instead of taking that new job. Then it’s trusting Him with that answer: to stay and trust God for support and provision, or to leave and trust God for His life and fellowship. To be planted in His life, in the tree of life, is to be swayed and influenced by the Spirit, not the world’s systems or standards. It is to live foolishly according to the world, but by His wisdom.

A Cop-Out or a Call?

To be sure, it is a matter of the heart, of the inner man, of the spirit. Where is my attachment? Is it in me and my things or in God and His things? To bloom where I’m planted can be a cop-out, an excuse to not have to deny myself, take up my cross, and follow Him. Or it can be a call, an invitation to lay down my life, take up my cross, and join Him in whatever He’s doing, whenever He’s doing it, and wherever He is or is going.
If I am planted in Christ, then I let Christ determine when, where, and how I bloom, if it all. If I am planted in this world, then I’ll stand fast in whatever I’m doing and ignore Christ’s call. To be planted in this world is to miss, ignore, or even not recognize the call of Christ. To be planted in Christ is to be ever ready to answer that call, regardless the cost.

At the end of the day, the bottom line is to not be so stuck in my own ways and in my own life. I can bloom where I’m planted and follow Jesus all over the globe, simply because I’m planted in Christ. Or I can choose to bloom where I’m planted and attempt to do things for Christ out of my own life and strength without ever having to give up anything in the process. To be planted in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a load of fertilizer, and to bloom there is death. To be planted in the tree of life is a load of, well, life. And to bloom there is, you guessed it, life.

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About R.C.

Constrained by the love of Christ, R.C. currently lives in a 5th-wheel camper with his wife and three of their four kiddos. They enjoy watching movies and Netflix and going for walks together. R.C. also enjoys working through deep thoughts and new insights with a pipe in his teeth and a pen in his hand.